Morality in protection!

I am amused to note the advertisement by a condom-manufacturing company. The television advertisement shows a young girl wearing the skimpy clothes you obviously need if you like having sex (apparently people who dress in the usual stuff do not really think about sex) who is talking about how the flavoured condoms will make your sex life so much more satisfying and exciting and, wait for it.... make it as brilliant as the wedding night.

Now here is the interesting bit- the creators have very deliberately highlighted the name they have created for the character and pointedly add a "Mrs." to it. So it is Mrs. X talking about condoms and how they are oh such a pleasure!

Got me thinking about the stringent morality-levels among condom manufacturers! Impressive! But there is nothing wrong with that. It did however also remind me an episode from several years before when I had visited a gynaecologist to have some hormonal imbalances checked (sheesh, am I not supposed to talk about these things and visits to the "lady doctor"??) and after I had a chat with the dcotor, the nurse walked in to ask about the tests that had to be run. The names of the tests were ticked off and then the nurse asked if there was a need for tests that required, well lets just say some probing. Immediately, the Doctor smiled and said "no no, we dont do THOSE checks for unmarried girls".

Now I quit studying biology when I reached class 9 and maybe I am way off the line here and maybe what I went to see the doctor for did not have absolutely any connection with the check up that the nurse had asked about. But what bothered me was the comment about the doctor not doing such checks for unmarried girls, which reeked of moral-policing and the assumption that unmarried girls do not have sex and if they do, well then good luck to them for dealing with ensuing problems that may arise.

We have often seen and heard of cases where police personnel harass couples. The responsibility of a policeman or policewoman is to ensure that no laws are being broken and that the masses are safe, no matter what ideologies anybody has. The same goes for doctors.

And for everybody else.

Cornflakes to boost common sense, please

I want to reiterate at the start of this post that the purpose of this blog is not to crib, although believe me, it is a very therapeutic exercise! Advertisements are often a reflection of the way things are, in our society just as they are sometimes triggering agents of a trend or habit or message. But given the power of advertisement- through television and other media- it is important to also understand that even when an ad reflects a certain trend in its message, it will reinforce the same. For example, a friend of mine recently shared a note from somebody who questioned a television commercial by a major mobile service provider trying to sell its superior network. The advertisement shows the maid stealing a phone in the house where she works and then hiding it in her blouse. Again, the general perception about women working as maids is terribly biased against them and by reinforcing this incorrect (to use a very, very mild term) perception against a group of people simply because they happen to have less money than the next person is a shame, really.

In the same context of reinforcing incorrect perceptions, there is this advertisement of a cornflakes brand where the man cannot find his socks and asks his wife about them. She gets irritated at his questions and is shown to be fuming inside. Now the advertisement blames this on an unhealthy diet that leads to an exerted mind and boom comes in the saviour healthy cornflakes! The next shot shows the same woman smiling and happy as she chucks a pair of blue socks to her husband, also happy. Win win, right? Except that it is not.

See, with this advertisement there are two things that are subconsciously being relayed (I think the term is subliminal stimuli, you might wanna read that up on the net). One, women inherently tend to crib about housework and two, housework is the responsibility of women. Bear with me for a while before you start rolling 'em eyes and saying "here we go again".

Now when you sit down and actually think about it, there is a possibility that the man is asking about a particular pair of blue socks. There is nothing wrong in that. Except that your TV-viewing masses will not sit and analyse. They will simply see how a woman is cribbing about what is "clearly her job" and now this cornflakes brand says this is connected to health-related issues. I think if a 35-year old man cannot find his socks, I would be genuinely pissed off, even if I ate the damn cornflakes all my life. And mastered Zen meditation.

What I am trying to say is that there are better ways to promote healthy eating habits among women than this one where you leave room to believe that this woman in particular and women in general are frustrated and ill-tempered. Or blaming a reasonable bout of irritation on unhealthy eating. Second, it will definitely reinforce the belief in our already-sufficiently-patriarchal-thank-you-very-much society that women MUST take care of the household front of family life.

Now I know for a fact that advertisers stress a helluva lot on creativity, starting with casual attire and weird head/facial hair styles (have you seen their pigtail-beards?) It would, I say be absolutely smashing if with this, they can also break out of the proverbial box of social norms and ensure they are not, unknowingly adding to problems.